Coma Girl: part 1 (10 page)
“Let’s hope so,” Dr. Tyson said.
“There’s nothing more to be done for her medically?”
“No. A colleague at another facility told me about a drug cocktail that’s shown promise, but it’s incredibly expensive and it’s experimental. The insurance company refused to pay for it.”
“Can you file an appeal?”
“I did… but the insurance company is already looking at enormous losses on this patient—they will never approve it.”
“Won’t she get a lot of money from that professional football player who caused the accident?”
“That’s none of our business,” Dr. Tyson said. “We can only deal with the present financial situation. Besides, even if the drug was free, the hospital board would have to approve the use of an experimental formula, and I can’t remember the last time they did that—too much liability.”
So the brain cocktail was not an option…
sigh
.
“Dr. Tyson… do you think she can hear us?”
“I almost hope not.”
As they were leaving, another visitor was coming in.
“Excuse me, sir,” the nurse said. “This room has limited visiting hours—who are you here to see?”
“Karen Suh. I’m her ex-husband, Jonas Suh. I haven’t visited in a while, but I’ve been seeing all the news reports about that Coma Girl, and it sounds crazy, but something just told me I needed to come see Karen.”
“May I see your I.D.?” the nurse asked.
“Sure… here’s my driver’s license.”
“Okay, you have ten minutes.”
“Thank you.”
He walked over to Karen’s bed and began talking to her, slowly at first, but then he picked up momentum. I heard him mention someplace he’d traveled to recently, and a mutual friend he’d spoken to. Small talk. He sounded as if he missed her. If my notoriety had played a part in his visit, I was glad.
As he rushed to cram as much as possible into his allotted time, Faridee’s parting conversation with Karen came back to me.
Don’t despair—he’ll be here tomorrow.
Hm...
“HELLO, MARIGOLD. I’m back.”
Dr. Jarvis—this was a nice surprise.
“I’ve been banned from your room,” he said. “But I’m taking a chance that Dr. Tyson has left for the day.”
The chair next to the bed creaked.
“Now, Marigold, you and I both know that you squeezed my hand last Saturday, don’t we?”
We do.
“So I’m going to give you an opportunity to show me again.”
You gotta love a man who gives a woman a second chance.
“Okay, Marigold, I’m holding your right hand. Can you squeeze my fingers? Squeeze my fingers, Marigold. Concentrate. Tell your brain to tell your hand what to do.”
In my brain I was straining. I wanted to prove to Dr. Jarvis he was right to believe in me. If I was ever going to get out of this bed, I desperately needed a champion.
“Try once more, Marigold. Squeeze my fingers. Concentrate and squeeze.”
Nothing. And the effort had left me hazy. And now I’d probably lost his support for good.
“Okay, well, that’s disappointing. But we’ll try again soon. Meanwhile, I brought a gift.”
Something clanked on the bedrail next to my pillow. And suddenly, classical music filled the air.
“It’s an old iPod,” he said. “And a long playlist so you won’t get too bored. I slipped one of the orderlies some cash to come by and turn it off at night and back on in the morning.”
I wanted to kiss him. With tongue.
“Let’s just hope Dr. Tyson doesn’t find out. I’ll be back soon.”
He made a thoughtful noise, then the chair creaked again.
“Are you ladies passing notes around? You dropped one in the floor.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about.
“Wait, what is this? ‘Dr. Al Oscar, neuroscientist at Walter Reed… multifunctional drug shows promise.’ ”
The note my mother had written when she was Skyping with Alex. She must’ve dropped it.
“That’s bizarre,” Dr. Jarvis murmured. “But definitely worth looking into. See you soon, Marigold.”
After he left my mind was still racing. And another one of Faridee’s comments came back to me.
I’m supposed to tell you your message will be delivered.
Hm… the woman was definitely a scam artist... but maybe she wasn’t a total sham.
“COMA GIRL, we need to talk. I brought eclairs.”
Hopefully lemon—those were my favorite flavor to listen to Roberta eat.
“Okay, first of all, your mama is crazy. She came to the apartment and pounded on the door like she was the Big Bad Wolf and she insisted on coming in. And when I told her no, she got really snippy.”
My mom could do snippy alright.
“I can see why the two of you don’t get along. Is she your birth mother?”
Yes, and I’d seen the birthing video to prove it. When I was a teenager and vexing her more than usual, she’d made me watch it, from labor pains to afterbirth—ugh. But it was effective.
“So I brought more cards and letters. The super had to switch us to a bigger mailbox. He wanted to charge us more, but I told him Jesus Christ, my roommate’s in a coma, and then he backed off.”
She read me my mail in between wolfing down three eclairs. Lots of heartfelt wishes, another pervy offer from a guy wanting to be my “caretaker,” and more cash.
“A hundred twenty dollars this time,” she said. “I’ll add it to your stash.”
She licked herself clean, like a cat, then heaved a sigh. “Listen, I’ve been watching the news a lot lately. Marco likes to stay informed. And that guy who crashed into you, the Falcons football player, I mean the press is really tearing him up.”
I wondered where this was going.
“Anyway, something’s been weighing on my mind, so I’m just going to come right out and tell you.”
I waited.
Another noisy exhale. “So the night of the accident, you called me from your car. You were with Sidney, heading home. We were talking, and then suddenly, I heard someone scream and then the phone went dead.”
I had been talking to Roberta when the accident happened?
“I’m scared to death I was the one who distracted you and made you crash. I mean, we were laughing and cutting up, and then
boom
! And now you’re… like this,” she said, her voice breaking. “And I haven’t told anyone because I don’t want to get you in trouble. Everyone thinks Keith Young caused the accident, and maybe he did.”
But maybe he didn’t.
“Should I tell someone? I mean, your family has already been through so much. And how can the police tell exactly what time the accident happened? Maybe I should just keep my mouth shut.”
A rap on the door sounded and it opened to admit heavy boot steps.
Detective Jack Terry.
Yikes.
“Can I help you?” Roberta asked.
“I was just looking in on Marigold, but I can see she’s busy.”
“Who are you?”
“The detective investigating her car accident. Who are you?”
“Oh… just a neighbor.”
“Are you close friends with Marigold?”
“Not really. The super asked me to drop off some mail. Want an éclair?”
“No, thanks. I’ll come back some other time.”
When the door closed, I heaved a mental sigh of relief.
“That was close,” Roberta muttered.
I knew it was only a matter of time til my phone records showed I’d been talking around the time of the accident, but Sidney had already said I wasn’t on the phone when it happened, and if Roberta stayed quiet…
If Roberta stayed quiet, Keith Young could be wrongfully charged.
Or maybe not—maybe the bloodwork would show he was drunk… and maybe the accident recreation would show he’d crossed the center line and it wouldn’t have mattered if I’d been talking on the phone or not.
But the bottom line is
I
know I was a distracted driver.
And that means I might’ve done this to myself.
*****
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Thank you so very much for taking the time to read my story COMA GIRL (part 1). This project has been a labor of love for me. I’ve been toying with the idea of a daily serial for some time, and once I decided how to present it, I needed the right story, something that would sustain a daily narrative for an extended period of time.
When I was ten years old, one of my teachers revealed an accident had left her in a coma when she was young. She said she remembered all the conversations around her during that time and when she awoke, astounded doctors and family members by asking them about things they had said while she was “asleep.” At ten, my imagination was just starting to take flight, so I was fascinated by her tale and it stayed with me. Fast forward to when I began a fiction-writing career in the late 1990s. I pitched a romantic comedy about a woman in a coma to a publisher who liked the idea and, subsequently, bought it. But before I could finish writing it, the line closed and the contract was cancelled. (Please do not get me started about the unending wonkiness of the publishing industry.) I was so disappointed. I had written several chapters of the story and while I loved the concept, it didn’t fit any line I wrote for as my career progressed. So it sat on a shelf for 20 years.
When I was trying to come up with a story that could be told as a daily serial, I remembered the coma story, and thought the concept was perfect. I had to make a lot of adjustments to the original story, but I’m really happy with the way it turned out—I hope you are, too! And I hope you’ll follow along with all 6 parts of COMA GIRL covering six months in the life of Marigold Kemp as she lies a victim of everyone who visits her hospital room and unloads on her!
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Stephanie Bond
In the lively romantic comedy STOP THE WEDDING! a man and woman determined to stop their parents’ wedding find themselves falling in love with each other!
